✧ Chapter Thirty ✧
The Shadows in the Tunnel
from Have You Someone to Protect?
By ©Amer
A shadow was leaving him—his only guide—
chased breathless and quietly into the dark.
It moved ahead with purpose, not waiting, not slowing, and yet never quite disappearing. A sliver of light pooled from some unknown crack above, just enough to glint off the curve of a shoulder, the edge of a cloak. The figure's steps were deliberate, yet silent, as if the tunnel had known them before.
Silas followed.
Though he did not know the name of the place—nor the reason he could see at all—he followed.
The air was old here. It shivered against his skin like memory.
He was barefoot. Small. A boy, no older than ten, the sharp shape of childhood still softening his face. Each step came quieter than the last, like the ground itself didn't want to remember his weight. He should've been afraid. But something deeper had hold of him—curiosity, maybe. Recognition. Ache.
The tunnel split ahead, forming a crude Y of stone and time. The shadow slowed. Then, for the first time, it turned.
And there he was.
Thorne Amer.
Not a painting this time. Not a faded memory in someone else's voice. Real. Human. Tired, but not yet broken.
Silas's breath caught in his throat. His hands trembled at his sides.
Thorne looked back—not in alarm, but as if he'd known all along someone would follow.
"Go back," Thorne said, voice low but steady. "This isn't for you."
"I want to help," Silas whispered.
"You don't understand what you're asking."
"I don't care."
A silence settled between them, thick as the stone around them. Then Thorne turned again, choosing the left path. Silas stepped forward—but the right side pulsed faintly, as if something familiar lived there, something calling only to him.
Still, he followed Thorne.
They walked for what felt like hours. The boy never asked where they were going, and the man never offered. Only the sounds of footfalls and dripping water kept them company.
Eventually, they reached a chamber—circular, domed with ancient stone and carvings Silas could not read. Thorne raised his hand to a central column, pressing something into it. The tunnel behind them sealed shut.
"Why did you follow me?"
"I dream about you sometimes," Silas said.
"Dreams are just echoes."
"Not mine. Not when it's about her."
Thorne's shoulders tightened.
"You know Lhady?" the boy asked.
"I knew her before she knew herself."
"You left her?"
"I've seen her smile ," the boy whispered.
"In the way she laughs like she's trying to forget."
The accusation stung the air like a slap.
Thorne didn't flinch. "Yes. And I will pay for that. Every day."
Silas stepped forward. "I think… I think I was supposed to find you."
Thorne studied him. "You don't understand what happens if you remember this. If you remember me."
"Then make me forget. But not before I know why I found you. Why I feel like… like I lost you once."
The chamber dimmed. Thorne placed his palm gently on Silas's forehead.
"Close your eyes."
The boy obeyed.
"You followed me into a place memory should not reach. That's brave. Or foolish."
"I didn't want to be alone."
"You won't be. Not forever."
"Will you find her again?" Silas asked, voice barely a breath.
"I already have."
And then, the world folded.
Light poured from the cracks in the chamber's walls. Silas stumbled backward—but the light was warm, not blinding. The shadow of Thorne blurred, thinned, and then—was gone.
He woke with a gasp.
Night. Fire. The smell of wet bark and burning coals.
Silas sat up in his bedroll beneath the canvas of a temporary camp, surrounded by low murmurs and the rustle of soldiers turning in their sleep. His heart thundered like hooves.
He wiped the sweat from his brow.
It had been him. Thorne Amer. Again. And the tunnel… it had felt too real.
He remembered something else now.
A summer long ago, when his family had taken a rare vacation near the lake district—not far from the old Amer estate. Just a week in a borrowed house that smelled of rain and wild thyme. And there, one morning, hidden in the thicket of berry bushes, he had seen her.
A little girl with tangled hair and a ribbon too large for her head, chasing butterflies barefoot across the grass.
Lhady.
She would have been seven. Left in the care of another family by then, though Silas hadn't known that at the time. She'd laughed like the sky was holding her.
He had watched her from the trees for days. Never speaking. Never moving too close.
He never forgot.
And now—
"Bad dream?" someone asked softly.
Silas turned. Malric Fen, his comrade, sat nearby beside the campfire, sipping something from a battered metal cup.
"Something like that," Silas muttered.
"You were murmuring in your sleep."
Silas looked away. "Didn't mean to."
"Don't worry. The fire's loud enough to drown guilt. But you did say her name."
Silas didn't answer. He drew his knees up, rested his arms across them, and stared into the orange glow.
"We'll be in Solara in three days," Malric said. "Ready to face her?"
Silas closed his eyes.
"I don't think I ever was."
"But you're still going."
"I'm not sure if that makes me brave… or cruel."
"You think she won't want to see you?"
"I think I want to see her too much."
Malric studied him. "You're not the same boy who left."
"No," Silas whispered. "But I'm not sure I'm the man she deserves, either."
The night settled again. The fire crackled low.
Silas lay back, eyes tracing constellations he once mapped with Lhady near the cliffs. His fingers closed over the ribbon he now carried—same hue as the one he remembered in her hair.
He didn't know what three days would bring. Only that every step he took from now on felt less like a mission… and more like fate.
In the ruins of the dream, a single violet bloomed where Thorne once stood.
But only the boy in the tunnel would remember.
And even he—was beginning to forget.